


A Free Spot

by TundrainAfrica



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, LeviHan Angstober, LeviHan Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TundrainAfrica/pseuds/TundrainAfrica
Summary: "While she was still a commander in the midst of a war, she had to shut out all raw emotion while she watched Levi take down titan after titan, as the airship took her further away from where she had wanted to be. She did too good of a job turning off her emotions then and her last memory of Levi had become a free spot in her mind."Slight AU! Levi sacrifices himself in Chapter 132 instead of Hange and Hange deals with the consequences years later.Written for Levihan Angstober Week 4. Prompt: Free Spot
Relationships: Levi/Hange Zoë
Comments: 16
Kudos: 69
Collections: Tumblr Prompts and Oneshots (Tundrainafrica)





	A Free Spot

**Author's Note:**

> A part of me felt like Levi should have gone instead of Hange. (That is, if one of them had to go. I'd still rather they both lived and got their happily ever after)
> 
> I am in the middle of writing for the greetings and farewell prompt but it's really just not looking to good rn so I'd rather not share it for now. Hopefully, I manage to get the motivation to finish it up.

_You know Levi, it feels like my time has come. I want to act as cool as possible so let me go out like this..._

It had been two years since the rumbling had stopped for good. Eren was dead. The Eldians and Marleyans had established a peace treaty and the survey corps was declared redundant, replaced with a special defense squad. 

Mikasa and Armin willingly took over what was left of building the defense-oriented military. Having seen enough violence and loss to last a lifetime, one soldier slowly and quietly stepped down.

That one soldier helped build what was then the new city of Paradis, and still felt the burden of responsibility. Disappearing from society and retiring to some farmland on the outskirts of central Paradis felt wrong although tempting.

That soldier had seen things first hand that most people would never experience, so it was easy to take on a job as a teacher. This was especially since most Eldians did not want a repeat of the last war and who better to teach the future generation than one who had experienced it at the front ranks. 

The subjects taught were easy to pick up. 

_Math. Science. Languages. History._

Most kids would end up mastering the basics anyway and that was more than enough for most jobs. What most people from both sides had failed to master though, was how to empathize and how to critically think. They failed to learn how to talk things through or how to question orders. 

_How to question orders. How to talk things through._

That was what motivated the soldier-turned-teacher, to supplement lessons with anecdotes from the Survey Corps days. It was like living in one's dreams again. The anecdotes before and after lessons kept the students entertained and it also kept the memory of one important person alive.

Three months into the lesson, one of the students had turned out to be more invested than the others and had raised her hand in the middle of one of their story times. 

"Did you marry Levi?" 

Maybe the former commander did get carried away. 

"The soldier I mean. The one in your stories," the young girl clarified. 

“Lena, you shouldn’t have asked that,” another student muttered.

Lena jumped up and bowed her head down in embarrassment. "I'm sorry… You always got so excited when you talked about him that I thought…" 

Hange only realized then that for a second she had not moved from her spot. She put a hand to her face to see that it was wet. She hastily looked back at the blackboard and wiped her face with the collar of her sweater. 

"What would make you think we married?" She managed to ask as she looked back at the young student. Most of the kids in the room were roughly twelve to thirteen years old. At that point, she was still figuring out what could be mentioned and what couldn't to a bunch of preteens.

Lena blushed. "My big sister talked about her boyfriend like that and now they're married."

"Well that story could wait another time. It looks like classes are done for the day." The teacher quickly gathered up her learning materials into one messy pile on the table, thanking whatever god existed for the timing of that question at least. 

Some students protested but the teacher did not budge. The latter looked back again at the blackboard as she listened to the students pack up their things and file out of the classrooms. 

As soon as the last student left, Hange quickly closed the door behind her, slid on the floor and buried her face on her hands. 

_Why are you crying? It's been fucking years._

She slammed the floor with her fists, letting the pain that shook through her wrists, act as punishment for that random bout of emotion. 

_How many stories has she told them?_

They had started off as stories detailing the lives of the survey corps members who had given their lives to fight a war fueled by the hate of two nations. Somehow, the stories had shifted to her own relationships. She had talked about Moblit and Erwin, the values they had upheld for the greater good of humanity. 

_How had she described him for the students to think they married?_

Before she knew it, she had started to talk about the strongest soldier with ironically, the most unwavering regard for human life.The one soldier who was probably capable of taking down fifty soldiers without so much as a scratch was the same soldier who would ask her privately after meetings, if she could think of a better plan which would cost less lives than the one they had thought up just a while ago. He was a soldier who would always voted on alternatives that could preserve more lives.

At that point, Hange could not even recall what words she used or what tone she kept. She started to treat those story times she promised the students after every lesson as a reprieve, a way to just imagine once again the past that she had missed, and the memory that made her relax the most was that of Levi. 

It had been three months since she started teaching. She guessed that she had probably started bringing him up after the first month. It had occurred to her until that moment that she had never really implied his actual fate. 

_Did she talk about him in present tense?_

_Did she say something to make them think that he had survived?_

_You know Levi, it feels like my time has come. I want to act as cool as possible so let me go out like this…_

Her chest constricted as she remembered how she felt saying those words. At that moment she thought she was going to die. 

_How to question orders. How to talk things through._

Levi had never questioned her orders or tried to talk things through in public, in fear of undermining her position. At that moment, right in front of everyone, Levi had said, "No. You're the commander. They need you out in the field. I'm not letting you die." 

He had made a good point as he prepared his gear. Although he was humanity's strongest soldier at that time, he had become a little more than deadweight due to recent injuries. Either way, everyone had enough fate in his skills then, to know that even with those injuries, he'd still have enough power to take down a few titans and buy them some time to launch the ship. 

While she was still a commander in the midst of a war, she had to shut out all raw emotion while she watched Levi take down titan after titan, as the airship took her further away from where she had wanted to be. She did too good of a job turning off her emotions then and her last memory of Levi had become a free spot in her mind.

_Levi is alive. Levi exists in all nighters back in the office. He exists in the late nights in the forest, injured and half asleep._

As she allowed herself to relive that moment of two years ago, the only moment Levi blatantly disobeyed orders, the dam of emotions she had kept closed somewhere inside her started to flow free. She had poked a few holes into it, allowing herself a few tears as she carried herself home.

It felt like it took ages but Hange finally found herself inside her empty apartment. She locked the door of her apartment and slid down once again on the cold wooden floor. She neglected to turn on the lights. The darkness that slowly swallowed the room as the sun started to set, only reminded her that she was alone, alone to her own devices and her own thoughts. 

_Levi existed before but now he's dead._

The free spot in her mind started to disappear, replaced by what should have been the raw emotion at seeing him burn and fall into the deep ocean. The grief came in large waves and Hange drowned in the emotions she had failed to release a year ago.

She called in sick the next morning and the day after and she sat alone on her bed, only standing up to eat or use the bathroom. 

By what seemed to be the fourth day, it was as if she were floating. The waves had receded and she was left to survey for any damage.

 _Did you marry him?_ Another burning question came up from within her. 

Hange rephrased it, given her present circumstances. _Would I have married him?_

_Would marrying him have meant experiencing a continuation to those late night trainings as new soldiers?_

_Would it have meant a sequel to those late night conversations in the commander's office over tea?_

_Would it have meant someone welcoming her home every night after a long day’s work?_

_Would it have meant someone would be sitting beside her at that moment, hugging her, while she was too paralyzed by emotion to even get up?_

Hange shook as she tried to imagine how it felt like again to be hugged. She knew she could have easily called someone, Mikasa, maybe Armin for a little company. Levi though was the last one she felt completely comfortable crying to, the last person she had shown complete vulnerability to. 

_And without him, she was alone._

The cruel truth was that that memory of Levi alive had overpowered her memory of his death. That sudden realization came as the memory once again became vivid, at a time where she had no more responsibilities of keeping soldiers alive in the midst of a battle. 

Hange kicked her side table and watched as it toppled over, her belongings spilling out from underneath. She smashed her chair on top of the side table then the flower vase on the dresser. 

The crown and the military had given her enough compensation to replace everything and that small afterthought was what only fueled her motivation to just release the pent up emotion. _Everyone she had ever lost died for them anyway._

She went for the dresser to the side of the door and pulled out the drawers one by one, spilling out the contents on the floor before smashing them into the pile of remains of the furniture she had broken only a while ago. 

She stopped at the third drawer when she saw the familiar green cloak and the wings of freedom insignia. At Levi’s last moments, she had worn his cloak since she had expected to be the one to go. 

As she spread out his cloak on the floor, she smelled traces of the familiar odor of titan’s blood. A year cooped in the drawer had preserved the original scent. She buried her face on it and started to make out the scent of blood and sweat. At a certain point, she also made out the traces as well of the scent of old wood. The cloak had also started to adjust to the new world with no titans. 

She threw the cloak on her still intact bed and sat cross legged on the floor. 

_Am I the only one who hasn’t moved on?_ She let out a burst of laughter, and sprawled on the cold wooden floor. 

_The Titans are gone. The Survey Corps is gone. Everyone is dead._

_He’s dead._

* * *

In total, Hange took a week out of work. She used that extra time to clean up and apologize to her neighbors after that breakdown.

Surprisingly, most of them had been understanding. Hange though did not want to use the excuse of being a shell shocked soldier to be a bother to anyone and had compensated all those who lived closest to her. 

When she finally showed up back to the classroom, she was surprised to see all the students on their seats as if they had expected her to be back that day. 

_Of course, the substitute probably told them._

“You’re surprisingly behaved today.” Hange commented as she emptied her book bag on the table. 

It was Lena who came out from behind her desk with a box and placed it on the teacher’s table.

“We heard you got really sick for a while so we got you a present which could maybe help you stay healthy,” she explained, still looking apologetic. 

“Thank you.” Hange blushed as she started to untie the bow and opened the box underneath. Hange fought back a wave of nostalgia and the stinging sensation in her eyes as she opened the box to find a tea set, complete with a bag of black tea on the side.

“My dad told me tea is good for the body,” one student volunteered.

Hange put one hand to her mouth, as she felt her lips tremble. A part of her wanted to laugh and a part of her wanted to cry. She had told them enough stories to keep them busy for months but she had never mentioned tea. It was an irrelevant detail in the grand scheme of things, of course she wouldn’t. “He liked black tea. We spent a lot of our free time talking over tea,” she admitted as she traced the rim of the tea cup, holding it the same way she had seen him hold it countless times before. 

For a second, Lena looked panicked. “I’m sorry we didn’t mean to… You don’t have to talk about it anymore. ”

“No. It was my fault. I’m sorry.” She stood up and put her hand on the head of the young girl. “It looks like everyone pretty much guessed what happened to that soldier huh?” She smiled, keeping her tone deliberately light.

A lot of the students kept a sullen look and Hange was sure someone had at least explained it to them or at the least, they had picked it up on their own. 

“Well, that’s the reality of war. A lot of the soldiers don’t get to marry and have kids. Just so that everyone here could live in peace.”

* * *

That night, Hange emptied the contents of the gift box on her kitchen table. 

_Levi would have liked the tea set._ Hange thought to herself as she allowed the black tea leaves to boil in the kettle. The smell of the black tea wafted through the air and Hange closed her eyes as she allowed herself to be brought back again to those many nights when he was the one who would serve her a cup of warm tea.

_Did I add too much water? Did I add too much black leaves? Would he be disappointed?_

She poured the contents of the kettle into the cup and watched the tea leaves settle to the bottom of the cup. 

She positioned her hands on top of the teacup, attempting to hold the cup just like he used to. The heat right on top of the boiling water, almost scalded her palm and Hange gave up after a few tries. 

_I never really understood how you did it._

The warm malty taste of black tea in her mouth was nostalgic. Hange only realized then that she had unknowingly abandoned this luxury right after the war. It was as if her subconscious had been protecting her from a breakdown just like the one she just had.

The smell and the taste of black tea had always been about Levi who was long gone by then. As she caressed the intricate linings of the cup though, she also started to think of the efforts of the students who had thought up the present and saved up for it. 

She looked back at the memories leading up to his sacrifice at the hands of the colossal titans. The pain was still there but it was far from excruciating. It was bittersweet. Somehow, she did not need to delude herself anymore. She just had to let that bundle of emotions and memories within her untangle themselves.

Levi was gone. To Hange though, he was still alive. 

_He was alive in the black tea she had allowed herself to enjoy once again._

_He was alive in the anecdotes she had told her class in between lessons._

_He was alive in every single person who was alive because of his sacrifice._

_It’s the living who give meaning to the soldiers’ deaths._ _It's the living who keep the dead alive._

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think!


End file.
